


All The Zeros Lined Up (But The Number's Blocked When You've Come Undone)

by typervoxilations



Series: plot bunnies [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 5+1, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Excuse to write porn, I should be working on Shards I'm sorry, Kind of like a prologue for another story, Light Angst, M/M, Not really though, Oneshot, Slash, Such angst, Tiny thing I had in my head and wouldn't leave me alone, alternate futuristic universe, much pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-04 22:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1795024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typervoxilations/pseuds/typervoxilations
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaia doesn't want to do this, not really, not to Chuck when they've been through so much together, but there's too much on the line and not enough time and there's not much of a choice left for him, because it's all for the greater good, really, and isn't that the whole point of what they've been doing this whole time? </p><p>Chuck doesn't understand Isaia, he never has, not really, but it's never actually been a problem until it is and by then it's too late and there's nothing he can do to make it better because Isaia's always been a bit of a self-sacrificing little shit (thought admittedly a very attractive self-sacrificing little shit) and, really, Chuck should've seen this coming from five thousand leagues away. </p><p>Alternatively, the five times Isaia is there when Chuck needs him to be there and the one time he can't be, but not necessarily in that order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Zeros Lined Up (But The Number's Blocked When You've Come Undone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CMTaylor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMTaylor/gifts).



> Title is totally ripped from Knee Socks by the Arctic Monkeys and has very little to do with the actual thing?  
> Maybe, kind of?  
> I shall leave it to your interpretations.
> 
> CMTaylor, please accept this stupid little thing as a peace offering for not updating Shards recently? o uo//
> 
>  _ **Italicized and bolded words only**_ \- Different language  
>  _"Italicized words and quotes"_ \- Dialogue through comm device  
> 

↬ ⓵ ↫

" _ **You fucking idiot** , Isaia Gerard Segreti! _"

"Mmm, I love it when you use my full name, Charlie~ You know you're sexy when you're angry?"

" ** _Don't  call me that_**, I will cut you into a million pieces and  _burn you_."

"Ooooh, death threats today,  ** _kinky_** ~♥"

" _Asshole-!_  " 

The door opens with a hiss and Rolondo strides in the second before Chuck can throw himself over the table and get his fingers around Isaia's throat; his palms are already flat on the tabletop and every muscle in his body is coiled for the vault, but Rolondo's presence is like a bucket of ice water and Chuck recoils from Isaia, standing at attention immediately. Isaia, on the other hand, hasn't moved an inch from his lazy slouch, chair tipped back on its' left back leg as he balances himself and Chuck scowls over in a display of irritation at the younger male's lack of respect for their leader, and Rolondo can almost see the temptation to swipe at the chair leg flash across Chuck's face so he clears his throat instead. Chuck's attention snaps back to Rolondo in half a second. 

"Sir."

Isaia smiles easily and repeats Chuck's acknowledgement in a slower drawl, earning him another rage-flash-glare that Rolondo pretends not to notice as he debriefs them.

(  _he'll also pretend not to notice afterwards when Chuck sinks his fingers into Isaia's jacket and drags him out the door_  )

And he'll pretend not to know what Chuck dragged Isaia off to do because he's blind in one eye, not mentally impaired because for all that Chuck hisses and spits at Isaia, every time the younger male risks his life on various missions where Chuck is forced to play quartermaster because he's unfit for the type of delicate undercover work Isaia lives and breathes, every time he makes it back by the skin of his teeth, Chuck will drag him off and the two of them wouldn't be seen for hours afterwards.

(  _Rolondo knows _even if Chuck doesn't_ that it's Chuck's way of reassuring himself that Isaia is still alive )_

 

↬ ⓶ ↫

Isaia has long come to terms with his feelings because Chuck is (  _perfect, important, ~~his~~  _) the only one who can keep up with him, the way he thinks, the words he says, the ones he can't (  _and he knows, he knows, for all that Chuck snaps at him and insults him, he feels the same way because if he didn't, there was no way he'd continue to stay the way he did_ ).

"You fucking  _irritate me so much._ "

Point being now when Chuck shoves him against the wall of his (  _their_ ) bedroom (  _door locked because Chuck had this all planned out in his head, Isaia just knows it_ ) hard enough for him to stumble, palms scrambling for a purchase even as Chuck practically  _descends_ on him. "I  _hate_ you." He growls even as his hands yank along the bronze buttons of his three-piece suit, the brass finish of his belt, the white-silver iron of his zipper.

"You don't mean that, darling." Isaia snarks even as his breathing hitches in his throat (  _it always does, every time, without fail_ ) at the sight of Chuck on his knees (  _pupils blown wide, angry, ~~relieved~~ , devouring, animal_ ), grappling with the litany of curses that threaten his to strip his voice raw. _  
_

" ** _Fuck you, Segreti_**."

And Isaia is spared having to scrounge up an answer ( "Well if you insist, then  _get on with it_." ) in his disheveled state ( _because he really can't complain when Chuck says his name in their mother tongue, all spicy fury and cursing with some undercurrent of emotion Isaia can't put his finger on, raw, red lips forming around the consonants and vowels and the particular roll of the 'r'_ ) when Chuck forgoes teasing ( _like he always does, Isaia doesn't know why he's not used to this by now_ ) and Isaia's world narrows to  _Charles_ ( _because it feels wrong to call him 'Chuck' in a moment like this_ ) and his wickedly clever tongue ( _to be honest, he's almost jealous_  ) and the fierce enthusiasm he executes in everything he sees as a challenge (  _but Isaia's no challenge, no puzzle, because hell if he hadn't practically offered himself up in a silver platter the first time they ever met_ ) and _more_. 

White bursts of starlight behind his eyelids because it's impossible to keep his eyes open with Chuck doing something _especially_ gorgeous with his tongue and throat and teeth and his head hits the wall with a thud that might have been muted because of the heartbeat in his ears; fingers scrabbling blindly for Chuck's bronze brown curls ( _black in the moonlight, as black as his own_ ) and being unable to do anything but hold on in case the world falls away from his feet.

He has the vague feeling that briefly, for a few seconds, Chuck's fingers were slotted between his own, palms aligned, squeezing tight like they were gripping on a lifeline, but by the time he comes down from his orgasm high, somehow he's half-sprawled on the bed and Chuck is turning away; the door to the backroom whirs closed and Isaia somehow feels like if it had been one of those old doors back in the orphanage, it would have been the equivalent of it slamming shut. 

The phantom warmth between his fingers doesn't go away and if Chuck comes back to find Isaia curled up on his side of the bed, passed out from the exhaustion of his recent mission, he doesn't mention anything afterwards.

 

↬ ⓷ ↫

 Chuck hates (  _loathes, ~~adores~~ , abhors _)sex with Isaia, but like everything else when it comes to the younger male, Chuck can't find it in him to resist (  _never, ever, because Isaia has him curled around his little finger and Chuck has Isaia curled around his and this isn't love, never, ever, but it's theirs_  ).

He hates it because Isaia never rushes, from the first drag of their lips, the slow build of friction that he never lets Chuck speed up, the methodical way he peels off their clothing, until Chuck is so aroused he can barely stand straight, because it feels too right, (  _too good, too much_ ) and there's too much of himself invested into whatever it is they have; because the whisper of Isaia's lips across his exposed skin feels too much like worship and Chuck has too many scars to count to be perfect in any way, but Isaia pauses over each one, each time, lavishing attention on them until Chuck digs his fingers into Isaia's scalp, tugging at his hair with a breathless growl that reminds him there are other things he should be focusing on. 

Because Isaia is equally careful with the way he opens him up, slow, gentle, reverent, with irritating little pauses in between adding each finger where he bends down just a little more to chase an errant drop of sweat down Chuck's thigh, which will be hitched up to allow Isaia better access, or back up his navel, his chest, his neck, before he allows himself to return to the literal task at hand.

Because for all his gentle patience, his fingers will dig bruises into Chuck's hips when he presses in (  _claiming, demanding, savage worship_  ), and Chuck will feel the tremble in his shoulder blades like he's fighting the urge not to throw all caution to the wind and just  _fuck_ him into the bed until Chuck feels it a week from then, but he doesn't,  _he doesn't_ , not because Chuck won't let him but because he doesn't want to hurt him and if Chuck wasn't already incapable of thinking at that point it would've blown his mind how much Isaia actually  _cared_. 

Because there is a certain way Isaia says his name in moments like these, all out of breath and quiet and laced with something that Chuck can't (  _won't_  ) place ( " _Charles..._ " ), stripped of his usual annoying charm and taunting (  _breaking, breaking, broken_  ), replaced with the raw undercurrent of emotion that completely sweeps away Chuck's defenses (  _broken, crumbling, remade and reinforced_  ). 

Because on the occasion that Chuck can open his eyes to watch Isaia, he finds that Isaia is already looking back, something fierce and fragile at the same time smoldering away in an almost desperate gaze and it's enough to take his breath away when he falls apart (  _not enough, too much, more, more, more_  ). 

Isaia is a cuddler, and when they do this (  _dance, flicker, merge, breathe, rinse and repeat_ ) for the first time Chuck is not surprised by this.

What he  _is_ surprised about is how he doesn't actually mind.

(  _and never, ever will he admit how much this has become his anchor_  )

 

↬ ⓸ ↫

Isaia can't do romantic, even if he wanted to.

( Romance is a hard thing to come by, when his specialty is draping an arm around people's shoulders and pretending to try and be their friend but in actuality his fingers are looking for the chink in their armor to slide a poison-coated knife into, and the women, and on occasion, men, he flirts with end up disappearing by the time the night ends and no one finds the bodies until they stop looking )

Chuck can't do romantic, not that he wants to.

( Romance doesn't even have foothold in the folds of his brain, there is no space for it because everything has been replaced with a single-minded determination to protect and fight and kill and set fire to, with scientific theory and mathematical equations that are polished and polished and polished again to create the perfect system of chain effect explosives, half of which that could span and destroy the entirety of the Central underground if he so wished )

But Chuck isn't completely ignorant of certain romantic rituals that start to pop up unannounced and not entirely when he least expects it. 

And it was only chance that Rolondo made him study flowers and their meanings when they tried to tailor him to go undercover as a local florist once but he knows enough to narrows his eyes at the inconspicuous yellow tulips ( _hopelessly in love_  ) and sunflowers ( _adoration_  ) and a single red carnation ( _my heart aches for you_  ) tied up neatly with a pale sunset orange ribbon on his desk.

It's the fifth time this week since Monday and Chuck is already getting tired to leaving the obviously sappy gifts in the bin.

So when Isaia comes back from his mission that day the flowers are thrust into his face the moment he opens the door to the bedroom.

"Why,  _Charlie_ , did you get  _flowers_ for  _me_?" 

Isaia's mock-flattered tone grates at Chuck and he doesn't resist smacking Isaia in the face with a particularly large sunflower just to see him splutter when he has to spit out a leaf. "What is this?" Chuck asks him, voice flat and unamused. "Flowers, Charlie, I'm sure you've seen them before." Isaia replies, just as flat, but highly amused. "Sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants-"

"I know what they _are_ ,  ** _smart ass_** _,_ what are they _doing_ in my _room_?" 

It triggers an alarm in Chuck's head when Isaia's gaze slips, even for the fraction of a second, the white around his lips as he presses them into a line within the span of a blink. "....You've been moping." He grudgingly admits, and if Chuck was being nice, Isaia looked almost bashful ( _but his Isaia wasn't bashful, his Isaia ran headfirst into a gunfight with knives and came out alive, his Isaia spat blood into the face of death and laughed and, hold on, when did Isaia become his Isaia?_ ). "You always start moping around this time of the year." Chuck blinks slowly because he's never noticed that Isaia's noticed and it's almost...cute. 

"You're an idiot." He finally says, but Isaia must hear something in his voice that he doesn't subconsciously realize he's projected because he smiles his I'm-a-little-shit-and-I-know-it smile but it's also an you-love-me-for-it smile and an I-worry-about-you smile, but if Chuck is a little more careful putting the flowers back down on the desk and they end up in a pretty little vase by their bed, Isaia doesn't say a word.

 

↬ ⓹ ↫

Chuck doesn't understand why Rolondo's calling him at three a.m. in the morning with the voice he usually reserves for the most serious of emergencies ( _what if something's happened to Isaia and he could be bleeding out in some back alley in Central somewhere and Rolondo lost contact with him and the thought makes his heart twist in the most uncomfortable way and he knows it's too late for him to think that whatever it is he's feeling is anything else but concern because when had Isaia become so important, too important to lose_  ).

_"Where is he."_

Rolondo's question comes out as a flat statement, voice is gruffer than usual, weary even, tired in a way that is heavy on Chuck's heart and he still doesn't understand, because what does that even mean? 

"What are you talking about, old man?"

_"Don't play dumb with me, Salvraggi. Segreti's been offline for four hours."_

Chuck blinked away the sleep and tried to calm the slow, ivy-crawling paced dread that is creeping into his lungs and cutting off his air. "..what are you talking about? Isaia hasn't been in contact with me since he left." And the silence on the other end of the line makes him want to scream and throw the phone across the room ( _his fingers have frozen and he knows his knuckles have turned white because he can almost feeling the blood in his body stop moving_  ) as Rolondo lets out a long suffering sigh like he was afraid that this would be the case and that there's bad news he needs to get out but doesn't know how with the right tact but Rolondo doesn't worry about hurting feelings, not ever.  And there's only one reason why Rolondo would hesitate to tell him anything but Isaia couldn't have- he would  _never_ - 

Except it hits him that Isaia would, if given the right motivation, damn the consequences.

(  _Isaia is a hurricane and Chuck has always been at the eye of the storm but not now, not anymore_ )

Isaia was smart and quick and Rolondo's best; capable of anything and Chuck knew he didn't know Isaia as much as he wanted to, as he could have. 

( _They say the heart was made to be broken but Chuck never realized he had a heart to break_  )

_"...He's gone rogue, Charles."_

And the bottom of Chuck's world falls out and he's flailing in a bottomless, black pit of helplessness.

( _Chuck heard somewhere once that falling in love is hard on the knees, but they never told him how much everything else would hurt too_  )

He doesn't even realize he's stopped breathing until Rolondo's sharp voice calls him back to reality and he gasps for air with a sound that's on the border of a sob because he's been stupid, so  _fucking stupid,_ and he forgets that he's still on the phone with Rolondo as he forgets it on the pillow when he throws back the sheets and scrambles for his boots.

 

And that's how he gets here, to the middle of the snow storm, facing sleet and ice cold rain as he sprints after the blurry figure struggling ahead of him; or as close to a sprint that he's ever going to get with the snow up to his thighs and the night settling in faster than he could blink. 

"Isaia!"

If Isaia hears him, he doesn't let on; if anything he seems to struggle faster. There's something wrong with the way he's running, it's awkward and strange like he's carrying something too heavy and too bulky to move the way he normally does.

(  _please please please let him be injured please don't let it be anything but-_ )

" _Isaia please_!"

Isaia stumbles, falters, but he doesn't stop, still doesn't stop. Chuck's throat is raw, dry with the cold, and the sleet stings what's exposed of his face, but he doesn't care, presses forward even when his muscles burn in protest.

( _this isn't happening because no matter what happens Isaia wouldn't turn his back on everything they've been fighting for wouldn't betray-_  )

Chuck doesn't see when he finally stops but then he realizes that Isaia is only a few feet away; and then he realizes why, because Isaia is trapped between him and the sheer drop off a cliff Chuck didn't see coming either, and it kind of hurts when it hits him that Isaia wouldn't have stopped for him if he wasn't faced with this obstacle. "Isaia!" He nearly screams ( _and there is something under Isaia's arm, swaddled in so many layers it's huge and shapeless and Chuck can barely make anything out with the storm around them and he almost wants to cry_ ).

"Go back, Charles!" Isaia hollers back, and their voices are raised to be heard over the wind and it's so strange to hear Isaia call him his real name in such a serious situation that it  _hurts._ "You don't know- you won't understand!" "Then  _talk to me_!" He sounds desperate, he  _feels_ desperate.

( _so close but so far away, Chuck's fingers brush against the dark fraying ends of what could have been, should have been, would have been_  )

" _Tell_ me what's wrong; let me help!"

Chuck can see Isaia shaking his head.

"You can't."

Chuck blinks and suddenly Isaia isn't there anymore and it takes him all of three seconds to comprehend the only possible reason. The last few feet between him and the cliff suddenly feels like miles as he scrambles towards where Isaia was standing last and the cold seeps into his clothes, his bones, his soul, even as the wind carries Isaia's screamed name down, down, down, echoing off the jagged rock face and into the black ice ravine below. 

( _he has always been broken, a jigsaw puzzle with lost pieces, but you can't fix what you can't see_  )

 

↬ +⓵ Five Years Later ↫ 

Chuck remembers something like this happening years ago.

( _years and years and years ago, when he was just an ignorant young man who's one true love was explosives and clockwork dynamite and turpentine oil and Rolondo introduced him to another young man who was quicksilver and sunflowers and a disaster just waiting to happen and told him this force of nature was going to be his partner_ )

The lights have been shot and the party is in disarray; he doesn't know where Rolondo is and the girl he had been told to keep an eye on ( _Prospera, her name was Prospera, and there was a certain way she looked at him that was almost like she could see straight through him_ ) is missing from his side and so is her brother (  _adoptive, obviously, because Wynter Capello of the Capello Corporations was an only child, everyone who was everyone knew that_ ) and the motley crew that formed her little gang ( _Chuck doesn't care that Rolondo says that there's something about them, they are only children and Chuck doesn't bow his head to children_  ). 

( _the lights had been shot and the nightclub was in disarray; he didn't know where Rolondo was but his cover was blown and no one was by his side_  )

He doesn't see the hooded figure at his back with the gears of the crossbow clicking into place, behind him.

(  _he doesn't see the well-dressed figure wearing a mask at his back with the hammer of the gun cocked back, behind him_ )

The arrow whizzes past when an iron grip in the crook of his elbow whirls him out of harm's way.

( _the bullet whizzes past when an iron grip in the crook of his elbow yanks him out of harm's way_  )

He is pulled into the cover of velvet while the pandemonium rages on the other side of the heavy curtains but he is distracted by the scent of something sweet that's not sugar and something bitter like gunpowder.

( _he is pulled into the cover of the stage curtains while the pandemonium rages on the other side but he is distracted by the scent of something sweet that's not sugar and something bitter like gunpowder_ )

"Did you miss me?"

Isaia has a low voice, older than the one in his memories but Chuck can see him in his mind's eye all the same, all height and snark, glossy dark hair and eyes the color of sugar-glazed almonds, and it's almost like he's never left but there is steel reinforcing Chuck's heart and he knows Isaia can feel the edge of a knife along his hip ( only because his arm was pinned at an odd angle but it was lethal enough ).

(  _I've missed you I've missed you I _'ve missed you how are you still alive?__ )

"You are a dead man, Isaia Segreti."

Isaia has the audacity to laugh, still quiet, still low, and Chuck refuses to admit that the sound sends pinpricks of familiarity down his spine. 

"You'll have to catch me first, darling."

A gust of wind that blows the curtains into disarray and when Chuck can see again, Isaia is gone, but there is the phantom warmth around him that doesn't go away.

( _and if Chuck smiles, really smiles, a savage display of teeth as he watches the shadows dart underneath the balcony and into the night and the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzles in his head fall back into place, no one has to know_  )

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original work by the way! Isaia and Charles were created by one of my awesome editors, who them gifted them to me specifically for a story I've been working on since high school and let me create the details of their existence until they became my current beautiful baby boys. Fun fact, Isaia's name was actually Vorper (Vorper, Vorpal; yes I was a huge Alice in Wonderland fan back then, and I may be still am, just a bit) but I changed it.
> 
> I may or may not be thinking of actually molding the main story they're in into an actual format someday, like I did with The Shards of Ash and Stars but Shards is pretty long on its own and I dunno.
> 
> Maybe.
> 
> Someday.
> 
> o uo//
> 
> Charles's face was inspired by Lee Pace in Breaking Dawn part 2 and Isaia's face was inspired by [this](http://www.teenvogue.com/images/entertainment/movies/2012-08/ezra-miller-perks-of-a-wallflower_th.jpg) and [this](http://i50.tinypic.com/2wois83.jpg) of Ezra Miller.


End file.
